Pocket Wings Take Flight in Siskiyou Mountains

Pocket wings are a combination of snowboarding and sailing, skiing and flying a kite.

Posted: Mar. 14, 2019 10:26 PM

Posted By: Jake Garcia

SISKIYOU SUMMIT—There’s a new craze taking place in the backcountry of the Siskiyou Mountains.

"Skiing is pretty easy once you get going but this makes it easier because now you'll have handlebars and you'll be about 100 pounds lighter. It makes turning easier and jumping easier and it fits in your pocket," Dan Edwards said.

It’s called a pocket wing, and the 34-year-old Edwards thinks it can revolutionize skiing and snowboarding.

The pocket wing is designed to give you a different sensation than regular snowboarding.

It makes you more bird-like, more capable of taking flight and landing softly.

It’s all accomplished by an airfoil kite that doesn’t need wind to get going because you’re generating your own barreling down the mountain.

"If you start to gain some speed, this thing will create drag and lift,” Edwards said. “It slows you down in a way where you can almost do a pullup on it."

The pocket wing is still in the early stages of development and rollout, and right now, it’s forbidden at traditional ski resorts.

Edwards, however, says it’s only a matter of time before it becomes mainstream.

"Ten years ago snowboards were not allowed on certain ski hills. that's technology that was shunned at first because it was different. Gradually people learned that they were safe and controllable and now it's widely used and accepted as normal technology," he said.